Page 74 of Again, Scoundrel

Darius remained frozen, his back to his brother. “I—” he said so quietly that Alistair nearly missed the word.

But then shook his head, changing his mind and whatever it was he had been about to say was lost. “You can’t be away at sea forever. Father wants you here and settled. I won’t go against him.”

“No,” Alistair said. “That’s not good enough. This is my life, and I’ll have answers.”

“The Marquessate demands this of you, Alistair. As it has demands of all of us. You will oblige, like we all do. That is the only answer you need.”

Darius pulled himself onto his horse and turned it back to Rosehips along their drier, inland path.

“Will you stay for dinner?” he asked, making it clear the conversation about Alistair’s company was over.

Alistair reached out and grabbed the reins. “No. And no more hiding, brother. Why does the weight of the coronet fall to me? You are the heir, not me. It shouldn’t ever be me.”

Darius looked at his brother for a long while, still as stone atop his horse.

Finally, he said, “I don’t know what happened to you that summer. I can imagine, of course. Father was beside himself. It couldn’t have been easy. It’s why Mother took me away.

“No one realized he’d take it out on you. How could we have known? In any case, you should know it wasn’t because of you, Alistair. It was because of me, and I should have told you that a long time ago.”

Alistair let go of the reins. “What does that mean?”

“The summer you turned fifteen was the summer that Father found out I was having a love affair.” Darius paused, looking at Alistair expectantly.

“With George,” he added when Alistair hadn’t replied. “The stablemaster’s son.”

Alistair tried to hold his face still as his brother’s words settled into his mind. He’d seen homosexuality before, both in the Navy where it was more common than anyone who wasn’t in the Navy realized, and on his travels too.

He was initially shocked by Darius’s admission, but given a few moments to absorb it, he was more shocked that everything he’d always known about his brother was wrong than he was that his brother preferred the sexual company of men.

He knew he should say something to Darius, but he didn’t know what. And without the right words, he opted to remain quiet.

“It’s good to see you going after something, Alistair,” Darius finally said. “I am proud of you.”

And with that, he wheeled his horse around and rode away, leaving Alistair to his dumbfounded silence. It took a few minutes more for him to bring himself back to reality, mount his own horse, and follow.

The conversation couldn’t be left there, with him staring agape like a dunderheaded lummox at his elder brother. But he had no more than stepped foot into Rosehips when Jacks approached with a message.

“My lord,” Jacks said, holding out a silver tray. “The messenger said it was urgent.”

Alistair took the message and read. It was from Williams, who had stayed on in London.

Jess is missing, was all the note said.

Chapter

29

Violet rang the bell to Alistair’s townhouse as she had done every time she’d come to see her patient. Each time, she had been greeted at the door by Williams and led straight to Jess’s room. In the nine days that had passed since she’d saved Jess’s life, and since she had spent the night with Alistair, she hadn’t laid eyes on him once.

She’d asked after him early on and been told he was indisposed. The implacable valet kept a straight face as they passed the closed door to the study, never giving away that Alistair was ensconced inside.

In the end, Williams’s tact did not halt Violet’s questions so much as the rank smell of old whisky and cheroot smoke emanating from the room did. She knew he was closed up in there, and she feared he was smoking and drinking himself into oblivion. But she understood well enough that she couldn’t go to him. She couldn’t help. Her presence would make him worse, not better.

All she could give him now was time and distance. And respect enough not to use him to ease her guilty conscience.

The next time she visited, he was gone. She knew it without asking, from the way the house felt devoid of his presence. There was no overcoat in the hallway, no closed study door. In fact, the door was open to air out the room, with sunlight streaming in through the windows where the heavy drapery had been pulled back.

But mostly Violet knew because the intangible essence of Alistair was missing. She tried not to think about where he was or what he was doing.